TMSO Special “Beethoven's 9th”（12/24）

This concert is over. Date: Sun. 24. December 2023 14:00 (13:00)

Venue: Sumida Triphony Hall Seat

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Artists

Alan GILBERT, Conductor
Christina NILSSON, Soprano
Rinat SHAHAM, Mezzo-Soprano
Michael WEINIUS, Tenor
Morris ROBINSON, Bass
New National Theatre Chorus, Chorus

Profile

Alan GILBERT (Principal Guest Conductor)

Alan Gilbert is Principal Guest Conductor of TMSO, Principal Conductor of NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Music Director of Royal Swedish Opera, and Conductor Laureate of Royal Stockholm Philharmonic. He was also Music Director of New York Philharmonic between 2009 and 2017. Gilbert makes regular guest appearances with orchestras including Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestre de Paris, Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestra. He has appeared at Metropolitan Opera, LA Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Semperoper, and Opernhaus Zürich, among others.

Christina NILSSON (Soprano)

The young Swedish soprano Christina Nilsson begins this season with the role of Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. On New Year’s Eve, Christina makes her role- and house debut at Bayerische Staatsoper as Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus. The spring will include another role debut; Tosca in Stockholm, which will be followed by performances of Aida at Deutsche Oper in Berlin.
The previous season Christina appeared in two roles at the Royal Swedish Opera, Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro and Aida. In the summer of 2021 Christina was a guest at the Tiroler Festspiele in Austria where she sang the role of Elsa von Brabant in Lohengrin.
Christina Nilsson was born in Ystad in Southern Sweden and received her master’s degree after graduating from the University College of Opera in Stockholm in 2017. In the season of 2017/18 Christina got her breakthrough with her role debut as Aida at The Royal Swedish Opera. Christina was awarded the Third prize as well as the Birgit Nilsson Prize in the 2019 Operalia competition. In 2017 Christina Nilsson was awarded the First prize in the Renata Tebaldi International Voice Competition, and she received the First prize as well as the Audience's prize of the Wilhelm Stenhammar International Competition in 2016.

Rinat SHAHAM (Mezzo-Soprano)

As much at home on the opera stage as she is in concert hall, Rinat Shaham has portrayed Carmen in over 45 productions worldwide including Vienna, Rome, Berlin, Munich and New York and has collaborated with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Christoph Eschenbach, Christian Thielemann and Alan Gilbert.

Her concert work has seen her perform the role of Judith in Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle including in Vienna and Barcelona and this autumn sees her stage debut in this role with the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, a role that she will also record with Karina Canellakis and the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra. She has also sung Bernstein in Hamburg and Vienna, Purcell in Helsinki, and is a regular collaborator at the Teatro del Liceu, Barcelona. She returns to Barcelona in 2023 in Marina Abramovic’s The Seven Deaths of Maria Callas.

Michael WEINIUS (Tenor)

Swedish tenor Michael Weinius, winner of Seattle Opera’s International Wagner Competition in 2008, has rapidly established himself as one of the leading heldentenors of our time.

He made his professional debut in 1993 as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte and thereafter sang a large number of baritone roles, before making the transition to tenor in 2004, with Laca in Jenufa beeing the first tenor role.
Since then he has performed at many leading opera houses in Europe. Among engagements to be mentioned are Parsifal for Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, the Finnish National Opera and the Royal Swedish Opera, Siegmund for Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Nationaltheater Mannheim and Royal Swedish Opera, Hans Schwalb in Mathis der Maler conducted by Christoph Eschenbach at Opera de Bastille in Paris, Lohengrin at Wiener Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Stockholm, as well as highlights from Lohengrin in Baden-Baden with Christian Thielemann, Tristan at the Royal opera in Stockholm, Staatstheater Kassel and ROH Covent Garden, Siegfried in both Siegfried and Götterdämmerung in Geneva, Düsseldorf and Leipzig.
He has collaborated with distinguished conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Christoph Eschenbach, Alan Gilbert, Marek Janowski, Axel Kober, Kent Nagano, Donald Runnicles, Esa Pekka Salonen and Christian Thielemann.
Michael Weinius also appears regularly on the concert stage, perfoming works such as Gurrelieder by Schönberg, Beethovens 9th symphony, Mahler´s Das Lied von der Erde and The Dream of Gerontius by Elgar.
In 2013 Michael Weinius received from H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf the honorable title of Court Singer.

Morris ROBINSON (Bass)

Bass Morris Robinson has performed with many of the world’s leading opera companies including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Teatro alla Scala, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Also a prolific concert singer, Mr. Robinson has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, and at the BBC Proms and the Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Tanglewood, Cincinnati May, Verbier, and Aspen festivals. He also appeared in Carnegie Hall as part of Jessye Norman’s HONOR! Festival. In recital he has been presented by Spivey Hall in Atlanta, the Savannah Music Festival, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Mr. Robinson’s first album, Going Home, was released by Decca. He is also a featured artist on the LA Philharmonic’s recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 which won the 2022 GRAMMY Awards for Best Choral Performance. An Atlanta native, Mr. Robinson is a graduate of The Citadel and is an alumnus of the Metropolitan Lindemann Young Artists Program. He is currently Artistic Advisor to the Cincinnati Opera.

New National Theatre Chorus (Chorus)

New National Theatre, Tokyo, opened in October 1997 as the only national theatre for the modern performing arts of opera, ballet, contemporary dance, and play. Meanwhile, New National Theatre Chorus started its career and has played a central role in many opera performances all through the seasons. Their ensemble ability and rich voices have achieved acclaim from co-starred singers, conductors, directors, stage staffs as well as domestic and foreign media.

Program

Beethoven: Symphony No.9 in D minor, op.125, “Choral”

Program Notes

Beethoven: Symphony No.9 in D minor, op.125, “Choral”

Ⅰ Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso
Ⅱ Molto vivace - Presto
Ⅲ Adagio molto e cantabile
Ⅳ Presto - Allegro assai

Ludwig van Beethoven: Born in Bonn, December 17, 1770; died in Vienna, March 26, 1827

　In its grandeur, elemental power, cosmic scope and affirmation of the universal human spirit, Beethovenʼs Ninth (THE Ninth) embraces a world of emotional expression ranging from deep pathos to exultant joy, from demonic fury to seraphic tranquility, from motoric energy to beatific stasis. The span of this seventy-minute work seems to depict a vast structure forming “before our ears” … its opening moments as coming “out of the void,” as Cleveland Orchestra annotator Klaus G. Roy put it. “Fragments begin to cohere; thematic atoms and molecules form larger structures. To most listeners, the same sense of awe, wonder and mystery that accompanies contemplation of the starry night applies to the Ninth.”
　Twelve years separated the completion of Beethovenʼs final symphony from the Eighth (1812). Ideas, sketches and fragments had coalesced over a period of many years, but work commenced in earnest only in 1822. The symphony was finished in early 1824, and the premiere took place on May 7 of that year. Having decided to incorporate Schillerʼs ode “An die Freude” into his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven struggled greatly to find the proper way to introduce the vocal element into an otherwise purely instrumental symphony. His solution consisted of an instrumental introduction in which brief references to the three previous movements are peremptorily rejected by a recitative-like passage for cellos and basses. This “recitative” presents the musical material for the first vocal entry (bass), which proclaims, “Oh friends, not these tones! Let us sing of more pleasant and joyful things,” whereupon the famous theme, formerly played by the orchestra, is now sung (“Freude, schöner Götterfunken”). This theme, of almost naive simplicity, caused Beethoven no end of difficulty. Dozens of variants are found in his Sketchbooks, leading to the final, perfected form he retained.
　The symphonyʼs opening is one of the most famous in the repertory. Barely a moment is required for the listener to recognize that mood of hushed expectancy, created by the sound of stark fifths in the horns, the strange rustling in the lower strings, and the violinsʼ thematic fragments that soon coalesce into a mighty unison outburst for the full orchestra. Though laid out in sonata form (exposition − development − recapitulation − coda), the movement contains a wealth of thematic ideas, and is far too complex to discuss in terms of the traditional contrasting first and second themes. The principle of continuous growth pervades instead, with much of the musical material distinguished by its rhythmic rather than melodic interest. The development section involves a lengthy working out of the principal theme (the initial unison outburst). The approach of the recapitulation is signaled by two immense, terrifying statements of the principal theme in D major over rumbling timpani. Leo Treitler writes of the “horrifying brightness that the major mode can have. It is, all in all, the shock of being now pulled into the opening with great force, instead of having it wash over us.” The movement ends with an apocalyptic vision.
　For the first and only time, Beethoven precedes the slow movement of a symphony with the Scherzo, a plan Bruckner was to follow seventy years later in his own Ninth (also in D minor). As music of relentless, driving power, the Scherzo is unsurpassed. This huge structure consists of a sonata-form Scherzo with two important themes. But like the first movement, this is anything but a conventional sonata form. The rhythmic pattern hammered out in the opening bars and its characteristic octave drop pervade the fugally developed first theme, in addition to becoming the accompaniment pattern to the robust and joyous second theme heard in the unison woodwinds. The central Trio section brings much-needed relief − a breath of fresh air and sunlight. Brighter colors, the major mode and more transparent textures all serve to contrast the Trio with the demonic power of the Scherzo, which is then repeated in full.
　The Adagio movement, one of the most sublime ever written, stands in stark contrast to the propulsive energy and forbidding grimness of the previous movements. Two lyrical and well-contrasted themes of transcendent beauty are alternately elaborated in a double variation form. A mood of quiet exaltation and profound peace reigns by the closing pages, only to be shattered by one of the most horrendous outbursts in all music.
　After the finaleʼs long instrumental antecedent is finished, the movement unfolds in free variation form. Beginning with the bass soloistʼs first stanza, the “Ode to Joy” moves through a series of highly varied treatments: twice for solo vocal quartet (followed by choral response); a Turkish march featuring characteristic “Turkish” instruments − triangle, bass drum, piccolo − with tenor solo; an elaborate orchestral fugue answered by a mighty choral affirmation of the “Ode to Joy”; a stately new theme beginning with “Seid umschlungen, Millionen” (Andante maestoso), initially for male chorus and trombones, which in the following section (Allegro energico) combines with the “Ode to Joy” in a great double fugue; a spirited vocal quartet introduced by skittering violins, and joined later by full chorus. This leads to the famous cadenza for the soloists, where the operatic implications of voices joining orchestra are fully exploited. Each soloist climbs to the top of his or her range. In a final burst of frenzied joy, The Ninth ends in the realm of Elysium, light years removed from the cares and toils of daily life.
　Beethoven scholar Maynard Solomon, in an address in Detroit some years ago, summed up the import of Beethovenʼs Ninth in these words: “Beethovenʼs life and his art can be envisaged as a search for Elysium, for ‘one day of pure joy,ʼ for fraternal and familial harmony, as well as for a just and enlightened social order. With the ‘Ode to Joyʼ of the Ninth Symphony that search found its symbolic fulfillment.
　“Beethovenʼs Ninth has been perceived by later generations as an unsurpassable model of affirmative culture, a culture which, by its beauty and idealism, some believe, anesthetizes the anguish and the terror of modern life, thereby standing in the way of a realistic perception of society … If we lose the dream of the Ninth Symphony, there may remain no counterpoise against the engulfing terrors of civilization, nothing to set against Auschwitz and Vietnam as a paradigm of humanityʼs potentialities.”
Robert Markow's musical career began as a horn player in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He now writes program notes for orchestras and concert organizations in the USA, Canada, and several countries in Asia. As a journalist he covers the music scenes across North America, Europe, and Asian countries, especially Japan. At Montreal's McGill University he lectured on music for over 25 years.
　

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